How to Spend the Final Weekend Before the LSAT

You feel that? That weight on your chest that makes it hard to breathe? That inability to comprehend anything you read? That desire to take 14 practice tests over the next seven days?

That’s the LSAT, kids, and it’s barreling toward a test center within 50 miles of you.

With a week and change to go until test day, you’ve got some very specific things to take care of over the weekend. First piece of advice, as always: don’t panic. At this point, you’re not going to move mountains, so don’t try to cram 10 hours of studying into each day this weekend. You’ll only succeed in exhausting your brain.
Here’s a quick rundown of how you should spend this weekend:

1. Dry run of test day on Saturday. Get up around 7:30 and see what the traffic patterns are like heading down to your test site. Make sure you know where to park when you get there, and that getting up early on a Saturday won’t be complete torture. It’s extremely important to test out your route so you’re faced with anything ridiculous on the way to the test center (construction, bad google maps directions, really slow old ladies).

2. Take a practice test on Saturday. After you’ve scouted out your test center, find a library and try to take a practice exam. We recommend libraries because they more or less mimic a testing environment: quiet, but with a fair amount of ambient noise. This, combined with driving to the test center, will closely resemble how October 9th will go, and should provide you with the closest idea of what you can expect on test day.

3. Make your Saturday wake up call a habit. It’s actually a pretty good idea to start waking up early on Saturday and maintain a similar schedule throughout the week. You don’t want to feel out of sorts on test day, when the only thing keeping your eyes open during section three is the unnatural odor of the person sitting next to you in the test center.

4. Don’t do a full dry run of the entire day. Just remember to knock off the rehearsal after your practice exam; if you try to party like it’s October 9th, you and your LSAT score are going to end up hurting.

3 Responses

Hi Stephen,
Yes! It is a good idea to take one or two practice tests. Be sure to review them afterward and understand why you missed questions. You should also avoid taking a practice test every day between now and the exam as that will be too exhausting and it’s unlikely you’ll learn anything from them.
Good luck!
JT